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Integrated Assistance on Countering Terrorism (I-ACT)

Overview

The I-ACT Initiative is comprised of representatives from each of the CTITF partner entities and is chaired by the Executive Office of the Secretary General. Through this Initiative, CTITF Office aims to enhance the capacity within the United Nations system to help interested Member States, upon their request and in a user-friendly way, to implement the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in an integrated manner. The term "integrated" refers both to assisting the partnering Member States with their implementation of the Strategy across all four topical pillars, which address the multiple dimensions of countering terrorism, and utilizing assistance capacities and efforts from across the United Nations system.

I-ACT draws upon and complements the work of the entities participating in CTITF without replacing or duplicating that work. Overall, assistance provision or facilitation continues through the entities under their own mandates, but I-ACT helps to ensure a holistic view and provides an interface with the partnering governments. Because of its broad membership and coordination and coherence function, CTITF is a unique catalyst for integrated technical assistance delivery. The web-based I-ACT Information System is one of the tools agreed upon for facilitating enhanced information sharing and coordination of technical assistance delivery among the entities.

What is the project methodology?

As a primary step, CTITF works with each partnering Member State to provide a mapping of requested, completed, ongoing and planned technical assistance activities and assessments by CTITF entities at the national level. Where needs in assistance delivery to the partnering Member States are identified, I-ACT aims to catalyze the application of existing assistance delivery capacity and resources within the United Nations system as well as, if no capacity or resources are available from among UN system entities, to catalyze the application of external assistance, as appropriate. Provided that sufficient financial resources become available, I-ACT further aims to provide “bridge” funding to facilitate the timely availability of resources for programming and assistance delivery for key Strategy-relevant needs that cannot be met by existing United Nations system resources and for which donor funding requests are not likely to be met within the needed timeframe.

I-ACT has now become a recognizable platform among CTITF entities and relevant Member States (recipient countries and donors) to provide capacity-building assistance to implement the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy across its four pillars. It has been listed by UNCCT Advisory Board as one of its strategic priorities.

Partnering Member States

In 2008, CTITF started working with Madagascar and Nigeria as the first two partnering Member States that had requested to be considered for assistance with the integrated implementation of the Strategy. Further to political developments in Madagascar, the implementation of I-ACT was put on hold. Burkina Faso became the third I-ACT partner country in 2009.

CTITF worked with these partnering Member States to provide a mapping of requested, completed, ongoing and planned technical assistance activities and assessments by CTITF entities in each partnering Member State to facilitate the identification of “gaps” in assistance delivery. Next steps included developing technical assistance action plans and projects in cooperation with the partnering countries, as well as mobilization of resources for assistance delivery by the respective CTITF entities.

In 2012 and 2013, CTITF started implementing capacity-building activities in Nigeria and Burkina Faso, respectively, in cooperation with CTED, UNODC, UNESCO and INTERPOL. The CTITF Office launched, on 24 January 2012 in Abuja the project on Stabilization and Counter-Terrorism Capacity Building in Nigeria that addresses several areas in need of support as identified in the mapping and gaps analysis conducted. In that context, a series of projects and capacity-building activities were undertaken with CTITF entities and with bilateral partners in close cooperation with Nigerian stakeholders, especially the Office of the National Security Adviser.

I-ACT was launched in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 26 June 2013, at an official ceremony jointly organized by the Government of Burkina Faso and the CTITF Office. The launch ceremony was followed by a two day inter-agency coordination meeting organized by CTED and CTITF for relevant Burkinabe Institutions, which marked the beginning of in-country activities in the framework of I-ACT.

In view of the progress made by I-ACT, consultations have been undertaken to expand the initiative to more countries. In that regard, Mali has become an I-ACT partnering Member States in April 2015 further to a mission undertaken by DPA-CTITF Office, accompanied by representatives of DPKO-Office of the Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) and UNODC. The mapping of technical assistance is in the process of being finalised and quick impact projects are being developed.